Overhype Studios famous for their game Battle Brothers (one of my all-time favorites) has finally decided to grant us a look at their upcoming title: Menace. There isn’t too much information as of yet, besides some game information presented on their steam page – what the setting and story will be like, and a snazzy cinematic trailer that sets the mood. It does have a few snippets of gameplay, however, it’s hard to determine how the gameplay will be from those brief clips. Take a look for yourself down below!
Let’s talk about the trailer a bit first. The setting is clearly dark, as this is not some Fortnite graphic-inspired cartoony game. Menace comes off as something serious and sinister, and besides the obvious influence like Aliens, the visuals and tone reminds me of Stasis: Bone Totem. Totally different genre of course, but a good sign nonetheless.
Steam page information
Now, let’s check out the Steam information and see what we can gather so far. We can start with that Overhype Studios now have a publisher: Hooded Horse. A fairly new player on the block, but they got some good names in their stall, like Xenonauts 2, Mars Tactics, and Manor Lords. Promising indeed, even if none of those games have been released yet. But it says a lot about what they are going for as a publisher.
By reading the presentation we can determine the game will still be turn-based, yet with one major difference from Battle Brothers – you will not control individual units anymore. Now you will control squads that have specific squad leaders with a name and background. These squad leaders, and the squad, will level up during the game. It seems communication with HQ will be cut off, you and the player will be the main boss dictating how to tackle the operations, meaning you decide what missions to take and what missions to ignore. And on this, it’s further explained that these missions will have branching parts – that to me indicate a more narrative direction than their past game. But it could also just be set up in that way, that the game puzzles different scenarios together for you to chew your way through since the text mentions procedural generation near the end.
It seems that you will have a headquarters of your own in the form of a spaceship. This will act as a base for rest, and research, which to me sounds very X-com Ufo Defense, and Aliens: The Dark Decent. Beyond the combat, I have always enjoyed base management in these kinds of games, so my hope it will be very involved instead of just a linear path of research/build production. Another thing mentioned that plays into this aspect, is that you will have to use black market dealers to expand your arsenal since you are on a communication blackout with no reinforcements coming. So, it sounds like you will have to scavenge and maybe help out the locals for resources and things of that like. Maybe the game will let you raid them, or take supplies by force too? However, that might be weird narrative-wise considering you are playing Marines – with that, I assume you are there to investigate and help the population if needed.
Tactical stuff
Now the Steam presentation goes into the tactical aspects of the game, and to nobody’s surprise the fighting will be very deadly, and it’s expected that you will lose officers on the way. It mentions flanking as an important tactic, the efficiency range of weapons will play a part, and that you will have to pick between units to send out, vehicles included with their own strengths and weaknesses. The text also talks about how you will have to equip your squad with a limited pool of resources. All this sounds good, of course, but what is not mentioned at all, is if the game will have an accurate representation of combat, or if it will work more as a general stat-wise gamified simulation of it. Going by the trailer and looking at screens, it looks like the latter to me. It reminds me of 4X gaming, which makes me think the combat will be something like Age of Wonders: Planetfall. This isn’t bad per se, but personally, I’m not too excited by 4X combat in this style. The future will tell how it works.
Character driven?
What is very interesting is the next part where they say that Menace will be a character-driven game, but at the same time have enormous replayability thanks to being procedurally generated. Now these two things don’t generally mix that well since it’s hard to form any kind of interesting narrative without having anything set in stone. Battle Brothers suffer from this. While it’s an engaging mercenary company simulator, it got nothing going for it in the story department more than fluff text and an end-game crisis that kinda just happens out of the blue. Now, I still love that game, but I wouldn’t have minded a narrative direction in that game, maybe as a DLC or something. I’m hoping Menace will not feel the same. For example, the X-com games are pretty freeform and sandbox orientated, but those games still have a clear end goal and a tale that is tailored for that purpose.
Randomized backgrounds for the squad leaders are cool and all, however, I’m just afraid it will by another piece of fluff, something you might not take much notice of if it doesn’t tie into anything. Yet, as I said before, the future will tell. Menace is scheduled to be released in 2024.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 